RS Racing Among The Points At Cadwell

Round 4 of the Thundersport GB Golden Era Superbike series saw the Continental Tyres backed RS Racing head to Cadwell Park in Louth over the weekend of the 29th, 30th and 31st May.

Friday’s test day was a wash out with torrential rain most of the day and Ryan only managing 15-20 laps throughout the whole day. “We were plagued by heavy rain, every time I went out on the bike the heavens opened, flooded the track and made it an all to loose and nothing to gain situation.”

Race day on Saturday was held in dry conditions. Ryan and the team picked up two comfortable 3rd place finishes but with no dry track time on Friday a few set up issues left Ryan slightly off the pace of the first two riders, although he finished well ahead of the chasing field.

Sunday (2 races) saw rain hit Cadwell Park again over night and early morning. By our first race around mid day the rain had stopped and with the track drying fast a tyre choice was made 10 minutes before the start of Ryan’s first race. The team made a decision based on experience and a tyre mix was opted for.

With a quick look at the bikes as they lined up on the grid it was obvious that the other teams had varying ideas on the right tyre choice for the conditions, several different combinations were noted. Surprisingly the front 3 riders on the grid (including Ryan) had all opted for different tyre choices.

Blunt & Dieterman crossed the stripe in front of Ryan on lap 1 but by lap 2 Ryan led the race. It remained in that order until the penultimate lap and with the track now drying quickly Dieterman’s rear tyre choice (slick) kicked in and he reeled in both riders in front of him and caught Ryan in the last couple of corners.

Ryan said “That was a fantastic race. I really enjoyed leading from the front again. It’s a real shame I couldn’t convert it into a race win, I’m gutted for the team. I put everything I had into that race.”

The sun came out in the afternoon to produce a dry track for race two. The team made some further suspension set up changes and it became obvious during race that these were heading in the right direction as Ryan ran his fastest laps of the weekend closing the gap on the two riders in front, to finish a credible 3rd. “I made a small mistake going into the Mountain on the first lap and the two lads in front didn’t need a second invitation. I couldn’t make up the gap!” Ryan said.

“It’s been a challenging weekend but we’ve made some real progress. We know what we need to change for round 5 at Oulton Park at the end of June.”